Automated, Secure Backups via Rsync

Want to automate your backups? Want to do it securely? Want it to be efficient and fast? Then Rsync backups over SSH using public/private keys are for you.

The following script will setup a nightly rsync backup of a directory you specify on your host to another Unix server (whatever you use as remote_host). The remote host must be running SSHd.

remote_host=ahostname.com directory_to_backup=/a/directory/to/backup

{

cd /root

# create a private key with no pass phrase.  

# You want to make sure no one ever gets access to this file 

# (else they'll be able to log into your remote host)

ssh-keygen -f backup.private.key -t rsa -C "backupkey" -N ""

# pop the public key into a variable

public_key=`cat backup.private.key.pub`

# add a backup user on the remote machine, install the public key

ssh $remote_host "adduser backupuser;mkdir ~backupuser/backups; mkdir ~backupuser/.ssh;echo
\"$public_key\" > ~backupuser/.ssh/authorized_keys"

# back on the localhost setup a job that will do the backup



echo "

#!/bin/bash

# invoked by /etc/cron.daily/rsyncbackupcronjob.sh

ssh-add /root/backup.private.key



# copy a directory to the backup server

rsync --delete --compress --archive --rsh=ssh $directory_to_backup
backupuser@$remote_host:backups/

" > /root/rsyncbackup.sh

chmod +x /root/rsyncbackup.sh



# and then you need a job to lauch the previous one.  This job will execute nightly
via cron

echo '#!/bin/bash' > /etc/cron.daily/rsyncbackupcronjob.sh

echo "ssh-agent /root/rsyncbackup.sh" >> /etc/cron.daily/rsyncbackupcronjob.sh

chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/rsyncbackupcronjob.sh

}

Edit /root/rsyncbackup.sh if you want to change the files/directories you need backed up.

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Automated, Secure Backups via Rsync